At long last the awful winter seems to be subsiding and I feel just comfortable enough to go outside and play. I have been really itching to get back on the bike but I left my bike in Lisbon so I had to find a new one. The bike guy here in Festus, MO is a nice old dude with a lot of long stories to tell, but he couldn't find a bike to meet my low low budget, though he tried. I have been going between here and KC to work for my bro on his new old house so I checked the Craigslist in both places for a couple of weeks. Lo and behold, I found a bike that works for me in Lawrence, KS. Thanks for the bike, Brian! It's a 1980 Takara, nothing modern about it but it was top of the line 30 years ago. It's a really lightweight but strong bike with quality components that have been taken care of, so it's fine by me. I like how nothing is plastic, so a bath in mineral spirits and a little elbow grease and actual grease was all it took to get 'er all shined up, looking and riding like new. Mel had an old Schwinn city bike that was in fine shape so we got suited up today and went out for a couple of hours. The weather was just warm enough to make it perfect with long riding pants on. I barely ever get to wear those unless its like 50 degrees ,they get too hot otherwise. That's too bad because I look totally awesome in them.
You know, Missouri isn't really a top destination for cycling, so I was wondering how the roads would be for riding. I was overjoyed to see this week that Google Maps now has a cycling routes option, avoiding the main road and steep hills to get from point A to B. We tried it out on a short run today and it was great! There were a couple of miles of state road Z that I'd rather not have been on because of the traffic, but you can go back and edit the route to avoid those roads and then suggest that they not be used. Most of the time we were on traffic free small roads, and though we had to make a lot more turns, it was interesting to go through neighborhoods we'd never seen. I found a nice looking BBQ place called Bobby Tom's in Herculaneum that I want to go back to. I think in time with a lot of input it will be an awesome resource. We want to take some longer trips and it will be very helpful. Try it out!
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